Toekoe Ketjik Oemar was an Atjehnese auxiliary — one of the volgelingen of the defecting warlord Toekoe Djohan Pahalawan — who, in March 1896, secretly warned the Dutch contrôleur Kroesen of Djohan’s plan to attack the Dutch troops rather than to march on Lamkrak as he had been ordered. His timely warning — attributed in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 to his doodsverachting (contempt of death), his trouw aan het eens gegeven woord (loyalty to a once-given word), and his moed en beleid (courage and prudence) — is credited by the album with having allowed the Dutch to take immediate measures and with having prevented the defection of Djohan from having “still more serious consequences.”
The warning
The Atjeh-Album records that, in the immediate aftermath of Toekoe Djohan’s defection, almost all of the Atjehnese chiefs on the Dutch side went over to the defector. Against this background, the album singles out Toekoe Ketjik Oemar as the trouwe inlander — “faithful native” — whose warning made the difference. The substance of his report was that Djohan would not march on Lamkrak — the kampong south of the road along the river between the post Lambaroe and the temporary post Anagaloeng, where the bandit chief Habib Long was encamped — but that he instead intended to attack the Dutch troops unexpectedly at the most favourable opportunity.
The warning was delivered to the contrôleur Kroesen, who was then serving with the Dutch civil administration of the geconcentreerde linie. The album notes that the very fact that an Atjehnese chief was willing to expose himself to the personal danger of communicating such intelligence — at a moment when nearly every other chief on the Dutch side was defecting — was itself worthy of praise, te meer te prijzen in een inlandsch hoofd, dat hij geen gevaren ontzag om den contrôleur te waarschuwen.
Consequences
The Dutch response to Toekoe Ketjik Oemar’s warning was immediate. The album records that the timely intelligence “did the design fail” (deed den toeleg mislukken) and that it allowed the regeering to take onmiddellijk krachtige maatregelen — immediate forceful measures — to anticipate the attack. The measures in question included the relief expeditions of April 1896 — the relief of Biloel and Lamkoenjit and the battle of Tjot Rang — and the general mobilisation that followed. The album’s tribute to Toekoe Ketjik Oemar — En aan Toekoe Ketjik Oemar is het te danken, dat de regeering onmiddellijk krachtige maatregelen kon nemen, en dat het verraad van Djohan nog niet ernstiger gevolgen heeft gehad — places him in the role of the loyal native whose individual fidelity partially redeemed the general collapse of the Dutch-oeloebalang alliance in 1896.
Significance
Toekoe Ketjik Oemar’s significance in the documentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog is as the named Acehnese individual whose loyalty to the Dutch — at the moment of Toekoe Oemar’s defection — was singled out for praise by the Dutch popular press. His appearance in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 is in a chapter titled Een Trouwe Inlander — A Faithful Native — and his warning is presented as the proximate cause of the Dutch ability to respond effectively to the defection. The album’s framing of Toekoe Ketjik Oemar as the trouwe inlander is itself a document of Dutch colonial racial politics: the chapter title presupposes that fidelity to the Dutch was the exception rather than the rule among the Atjehnese, and that the exception was therefore worthy of explicit record.
Account from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh (1911)
P. H. R. Beuming gives in Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh an account of Toekoe Ketjik Oemar’s warnings and of the grounds on which he was held trustworthy.
Beuming describes him as een man dien men als volkomen betrouwbaar kon aanmerken — a man who could be regarded as completely trustworthy — because he had already in 1876 served General Pel as guide on his marches to the VI Moekims and IX Moekims, and had since then always been on the Dutch side, for which the silver medal for merit had been awarded him.
He waarschuwde meermalen voor Toekoe Oemar’s bedoelingen — warned repeatedly against the designs of Toekoe Oemar — but men sloeg evenwel aan die waarschuwingen geen geloof. Helaas! Hoe spoedig zou het blijken, dat Toekoe Ketjik Oemar goed had gezien. That happened on 29 March 1896, with the defection of Teuku Umar.
Beuming returns to him at the opening of his account of the Beradin operation: when after 29 March 1896 the untrustworthiness of Toekoe Oemar came to light en dank zij de mededeelingen van Toekoe Ketjik Oemar het snoode plan van den verrader gelukkig tijdig werd ontdekt — and thanks to the communications of Toekoe Ketjik Oemar the traitor’s base plan was fortunately discovered in time — the cunning fox understood that his alliance was at an end.
The plan Beuming ascribes to Umar was to use the absence of the garrison on the Lamkrak excursion, which would leave the whole Kraton stripped of troops, to make himself master of Koeta Radja and Oleh-leh.
See Also
- Toekoe Oemar
- Toekoe Oemar’s defection (1896)
- Kroesen
- Anagaloeng
- Lamkrak
- Habib Long
- Relief of Biloel and Lamkoenjit (April 1896)
- Battle of Tjot Rang (14 April 1896)
- Aceh War
- 1896
- Atjeh-Album (Eigen Haard, 1896)
Sources
Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 28–29 (Een Trouwe Inlander).
Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911; uitgegeven ten bate van het te stichten Herstellingsoord voor Rijks-Ambtenaren). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144
Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh by P. H. R. Beuming (Amsterdam, 1911). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.